January 22, 2006

They wear matching Mondrian-style dresses, sing about cute animals and junk food, and opened for Sonic Youth and Nirvana. The two sisters of Osaka's famed ultra-pop Shonen Knife (translated, "Boy...Knife") have been promoting tooth decay since 1981 and are still going strong. Well, kind of. Their drummer just died in a car crash. And their new album is...OK. Kind of. But hey, Eighty-freakin'-one. Kurt Kobain. Dead drummer. Alright? Girl Power!

The first song, "Dolly," is about going to sleep by counting cute sheep...cloned cute sheep. A biting social commentary. The second song, "I Wanna Eat Choco Bars," is off the '86 LP Pretty Little Baka Guy, and is about singer Naoko Yamano's desire...nay...compulsion, to manually strangulate prostitutes.